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MEDIA > WORKING WITH THE MEDIA
Writing Op-Ed Letters and Letters
to the Editor
By the Center for Reproductive Law Policy
Opinion-Editorial Columns
Opinion Editorials, often called Op-Eds because they appear on the page
opposite the editorial page in newspapers, are guest essays written on
particular issues that are of interest to the media's audience. In newspapers,
guest writers produce a column giving their, sometimes expert, opinion
on an issue or an event. Television and radio news programs often have
time saved for guest opinions as well.
Purpose
Op-Eds can help you make your audience aware of a problem, and help send
your organization's message out to the public and to lawmakers and others
who can help.
Writing the Op-ed
• Call the editor and ask for any specific requirements for Op-Eds
for that paper. The policy differs with each paper.
• Humanize your topic. Try to begin by illustrating how the issue
affects an individual or group of people.
• Tie the Op-ed to a holiday, anniversary, election, report, vote,
or some pending action by local or state government.
• Keep it short — the average length of an Op-ed is 750 words.
If it's too long, it won't get published.
• Write clearly and concentrate on just one issue — many readers
may not be familiar with the topic.
• See if you can reduce your point to a single sentence, for example,
"Every child deserves a family."
• Raise the opposition's best arguments and demolish them with countervailing
facts, irony or whatever is appropriate. It would make your editorial
more powerful if you brought up the opposing views of your issue and explain
how your side sees it. Support your site with facts and numbers.
• Be positive — provide solutions, not just problems.
• Take a point of view; support it with facts and examples.
• Include a suggested headline, by-line, and one-sentence description
of the author and her expertise.
• After writing your column, create a suggested title for your story
(called "headline"), the name of who either wrote it or represents
your organization, and a few words on who this person is, especially if
they're an expert in the field.
Getting the Media to Publish Your Op-ed
• Try to write the Op-ed before you call the newspaper. If you interest
an editor or writer, they will probably ask you to send it to them right
then. Better to have it on hand.
• There is usually an editor for the Opinion-Editorial section in
each media outlet, as well as editorial writers. Find out the names of
the editor and writers.
• When you get someone on the phone, quickly tell them who you are,
the organization you represent, your issue, and why the proposed Op-ed
is timely or newsworthy. Then tell them you have an expert, or head of
your organization, or well-known person, who would like to get their side
of the issue across to the media's audience. Be prepared to either get
rejected, or to be told to send the editorial, saying they will look at
it and get back to you.
• Once one media outlet has said they will look at it, do not send
it to other outlets until this one tells you if they are using it. If
you need to know soon, call the editor a few hours after sending the editorial
to see if it was read and what they think. If they haven't read it and
they tell you to call back the next day, then do that — as early
as possible. Upon rejection, change and improve it (if you can find out
what's wrong with the editorial), and just keep passing it from one outlet
to another until someone agrees to use it, or the time to focus on your
issue has passed.
• Note: If a media outlet has agreed to use your Op-ed, they usually
do not change the wording, other than to cut out words to make it fit
in a space.
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Once a Positive Article is Published
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Reproduce the original. Copies of the article can then be
used in any future promotional materials or press kits. After
making copies, put the original article in a file folder or
notebook to keep it neat and safe.
Paste cut-out articles on plain, white, unlined paper, along
with the cut-out of the name of the newspaper or magazine
from the front page and the date — both to be pasted
above the story.
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Op-ed Example
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Copyright 1999 The Houston
Chronicle Publishing Company
The Houston Chronicle
October 10, 1999, Sunday
2 STAR EDITION
On Tuesday, U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan will announce
that the 6 billionth baby has been born in this world. As
a pregnant American woman, I'm getting mixed messages about
how I should feel about contributing another human being to
this planet.
Some people would have me believe that how many children
a woman should have is only an issue for women in developing
countries, who are viewed as reproducing in unprecedented
numbers. But I don't buy that, since Americans, along with
the other 1 billion wealthiest people on the planet, help
consume 80 percent of the world's resources.
For me, the key is understanding that population isn't just
about numbers - it's about people. Every woman should be entitled
to decide when to have children and how many she wants. This
human right has been recognized internationally since the
1968 Tehran Declaration.
Five years ago, I spent time working in rural villages in
Bangladesh. I would be hardpressed to persuade any Bangladeshi
woman to plan a smaller family when the infant-mortality rate
runs at 75 per 1,000 live births (more than 10 times the rate
in the United States.) An extra child means extra help in
the fields and an assurance that all would not be lost if
one child dies.
Providing contraceptives for men and women in an attempt
to persuade them to have smaller families is only a Band-Aid
solution. And taken to the extreme, state-imposed birth-control
policies can turn into human-rights abuses, as China's coercive
one-baby policy demonstrates.
Instead of just focusing on birth control, we should seek
to improve the quality of individual's lives. The best strategy
to reduce the birth rate is to provide maternal and child
health care, raise literacy levels, create jobs for women
and improve their social and political status, according to
the 1994 U.N. Conference on Population and Development in
Cairo, Egypt. Comprehensive, high-quality reproductive- health
programs are also important, as they result in better health
for women and fewer unintended pregnancies, according to the
1994 U.N. conference.
Unfortunately, the U.S. government is standing in the way
of such programs. Stonewalling by some conservatives over
abortion has contributed to the blocking of the $1.6 billion
that our government owes the United Nations in unpaid dues.
These conservatives are holding our U.N. dues hostage in the
U.S. Congress by linking this money with a provision to prevent
U.S. funds from going to family-planning organizations that
take any part in public discussion of abortion with their
own money.
The population issue should never be an us vs. them debate
over who has the right to have children. Every act of sex
should be consensual, every pregnancy should be wanted and
every child should be desired. If these criteria aren't being
met, there is a problem but it isn't a population problem.
It's a problem of human rights.
I'm looking forward to the birth of my child, and I look
forward to the day when each birth is a cause of celebration
rather than a marker of Malthusian doom.
Barbara Becker is Deputy Director of Communications for
the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy in New York City.
Copyright 1999 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
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Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor can be written in response to a recent news article
or other story printed in a newspaper or magazine. When a letter written
by your organization gets printed, it is another chance to get your point
across to a large audience.
Purpose
Many people read Letters to the Editor, making it another good tool for
your cause. Usually this kind of letter is written:
- to correct a story that you feel has the facts wrong
- to show how something important in the news has something to do with
your organization
- to point out how well a story about your organization or cause was
written
Writing the Letter
• Right after an article appears that makes you want to write a
letter, write it. Do not wait. Letters to the Editor get printed no more
than two or three days after the article was in the paper.
• Make the letter no more than 200 words long. This is a very short
letter. Get to your point quickly.
• Use stationery with your organization's name on it, if the letter
is coming from your group. If it is just from you, then use plain paper.
• Include your name, title, and the name of your organization on
the bottom of the page.
• Make sure your facts and numbers are right.
• Letters that are typed stand a better chance of getting printed.
Type the letter, if possible.
• Make your point without being mean or negative.
• If it doesn't get printed this time, keep trying with other letters
when important articles appear.
Letter to the Editor Examples
The New York Times
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To the Editor:
The United Nations took an important
step toward combating gender discrimination when it adopted
a new optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (some editions,
March 21).
For the first time, women whose rights
have been violated by their own governments can submit claims
to a United Nations committee. Imagine a scenario in which
women in a remote province of Country X are sterilized without
their consent while undergoing Caesarean sections. Their complaints
against the hospital and doctors, as well as the health ministry,
are ignored. With the optional protocol, the women can now
take their claims to a United Nations body for review.
Katherine Hall Martinez
New York, March 23, 1999
The writer is the deputy director
of the international program, Center for Reproductive Law
and Policy.
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Costly Sex Trade
To the Editor:
"U.N. Urges Fiscal Accounting Include
Sex Trade" (news article, Aug. 20) does not mention a
troubling component of the sex trade in Southeast Asia: hundreds
of women and children are being held against their will.
Women and girls are transported across
borders by traffickers who promise well-paid jobs and good
marriages. Then the traffickers "hold" their passports
and exploit the women and girls through forced prostitution.
Victims are often raped and beaten. The traffickers, not those
held hostage, receive the income.
While it is true that as a United Nations
labor panel reported, prostitution can generate enormous revenue,
the hidden costs include the violation of human rights and
the ravages of diseases.
Any study must take this into account.
Barbara Becker
New York, Aug. 20, 1998
The writer is associate director
of the international program, Center for Reproductive Law
and Policy.
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SOURCE: "A Media Handbook for Creating Social
Change," Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, copyright
© 2000.
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Op-eds and letters to the
editor can get your point across to a large newspaper
or magazine audience.
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